


I Don't Think You're Cute

by amoonlitknight



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: And Thus A Slightly Dumb Idea, Angry Sex, Comedy, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Forced Orgasm, It's Adora and Bow's Idea, Light Dom/sub, See I Told You It Was A Dumb Idea, Wholesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:42:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24825505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoonlitknight/pseuds/amoonlitknight
Summary: (Post-finale)Horde Prime is defeated, the day is saved, and Etheria has begun to rebuild. But for Queen Glimmer of Brightmoon, the duties of her station still demand she carry herself with dignity, grace, and the respect of all around her, even with peace covering the land. Good thing the aren't any aggressively contrarian, reflexively irreverent, catastrophically psychologically damaged former child soldiers lying around her castle being rude for the fun of it.Oh. Oh no. Oh wait...[This is a reupload by the original author. Some dumb stuff happened.]
Relationships: Catra/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 127





	I Don't Think You're Cute

There was something about the retrofitted Horde skimmers that would never sit right with Glimmer. They could slap all the brightly colored paint and Brightmoon crests on them that they wanted, but the silhouette remained the same predatory arc that had so often and for so long been the herald of a fight. Even now, at peace, just seeing them put her on edge.

Cursed if they weren't useful, though, especially for people who weren't her and thus couldn't be anywhere they felt like at a moment's notice—or, as was the case now, there was a need to haul boxes of freight. The restoration of Sileneas was going “alright, I guess”, according to Mermista, which was amazing news, but they still needed a lot of specialty items to help repair the Sea Gate. And, since that was a lot of valuable cargo all in one place at one time, and with the remnants of the Horde and stray Prime bots still lurking here and there...

“Oh, _man_ ,” Adora exclaimed giddily. “I wish we'd had these upgrades when I was still with the Horde! Entrapta really fixed everything up for you guys, didn't she? Feel this! I couldn't crash it if I tried!”

A pair of Brightmoon guards were stirred into panicked action to prevent the last unsecured box of flowstone from falling off the deck as Adora playfully swung the skimmer's rudder back and forth.

“Is that what that was about back then?” Catra asked, lounging in a windowsill above them. Her voice was sly and calm but Glimmer was mildly proud to notice the slightly forced edge to the tone. She obviously wasn't happy Adora was going off for a week and a half without her, but for one reason or another Catra wasn't the most popular person in Sileneas. Something about all the explosions and conquering, if Glimmer had to take a stab at it. “You were _trying_ to crash them? Explains a lot.”

“Only the one time,” Adora pouted.

“Well, Kyle didn't work on this one, so you can't blame it on him like the, what, nineteen others...?”  
  
Bow looked up from his pad in alarm. “Nine- _what_!?”

“It wasn't _nineteen_.” Adora let go of the rudder and counted silently on a hand. Bow's eyes grew wider and wider as the count reached both hands, then a third. “It's more like _twelve_ , unless you count that one time when you and Lonnie bet me I couldn't control the stick with just my buttcheeks, so that one is on the two of you really—”

Catra considered this. “Mmm. Okay, I'll take that one.”

Glimmer rolled her eyes. “Bow, you drive.”

“Aww, but—” Adora began, but Glimmer tutted her quiet.

“Ah ah ah. Queen.”

“But I—”

“Hey! Queen, I said.”  
  
A yellow glow enveloped Adora's hand and the Sword appeared. She gestured at it meaningfully. “Come on!”

“Bow, tie her to the mast and _then_ drive,” Glimmer growled, crossing her arms.

The sword vanished into thin air again as Adora turned away, grumbling to herself. The word “twelve” came up a lot.

“Thirteen,” Catra corrected, lazily, apparently fascinated by flexing the claws on her right hand in and out.

“Hey! You said—”

“Changed my mind.”

The two lovebirds exchanged sarcastic little grins.

Glimmer sighed. She didn't know why in the world she'd expected anything else, but it turned out having Catra around the castle was not all that much different than things had always been when Catra was around, which was to say, she and Adora bickered and argued just as much as they had when they were deadly enemies. It just happened more frequently and with a _marginally_ smaller chance of a knock-down, drag-out brawl happening at any given moment. The woman seemed incapable of letting a moment pass uncommented on, among other things, and seemed to take deranged delight in winding up the guards by moving around in secret.

Adora seemed pretty happy about it, though, which was the main thing. Although considering how much they squabbled and roughhoused, it was sometimes not immediately clear that this was the case.

Glimmer, well...

Catra could be...fun. And exciting. And it was nice to have someone to talk to who had a more sophisticated outlook on the world than “punch the bad guys”, possibly because Catra was sick of being punched.

That, and...from time to time, their eyes met, and Glimmer could kind of tell they were both thinking about being so far away and so very, very alone.

Together.

Wasn't exactly a bonding moment, but there was a bond there. Somehow.

A bond constantly tested by Catra's generally contrary attitude and refusal to behave with anything resembling decorum, but...

A pricking on the back of her neck made her glance up, and indeed, Catra was staring down at her, her expression unreadable. When Glimmer tried to give her an encouraging smile, Catra just looked off at nothing in particular and gnawed a piece of jerky she'd stolen from the kitchens—another thing from the long list of casual indignities she inflicted on the castle staff.

Yep. That miserable creature they'd pulled out of Horde Prime's ship was the one and only, original Catra. No doubt about it.

Before long the last of the cargo was stowed and secure, and Bow and Adora boarded the skiff. Catra snickered at Bow as he politely but firmly took the rudder guide in his hands with a slightly frantic expression. Adora huffed.

“Alright, you two. Head straight for Sileneas. _No adventures_ , got it?” Glimmer commanded.

“Awww,” Adora groaned. “Come on, it's been _months_.”

Bow looked skeptical. “I don't know if I feel like I can accept responsibility like that. Adventures just sort of happen to us, naturally. Or they used to, anyways.”

“See, I worry that if I don't explicitly tell you not to have adventures, you'll find a way for them to happen _naturally_ ,” Glimmer said, firmly striking her staff against the flagstones to emphasize her point.

Adora's face brightened. “What if—”

“No.”

“But I've heard that there's—”

“Take care of it on the way back!”

“Uuuuuuuggghhhhhhh....!”

“See? You're in the mood to see Mermista already.”

Catra laughed, bright and cutting.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Adora growled at her. “You just like watching her boss people around. You think it's _cute.”_

“ _Cute_!?” Glimmer roared, turning to glare at Catra. “I am the _queen_!”

Catra rolled her eyes and made a show of yawning lackadaisically. “I just think it's...entertaining. How you try to be all, you know, proper and dignified. I just yelled at people and I have to say, it's pretty good at getting things done.”

Adora leaned on the skimmer's railing and gave Catra a smug look. “I think your exact words went on further to say that when she gets all serious and _killer queen_ , it's kind of hot.”

“ _What!?_ ” Glimmer gasped.

Catra went from lounging carelessly to arch-backed and fluffy-tailed in a hot second.

“A _dor_ a!” she whined through her teeth. “What the hell?”

Adora looked up at her, dead seriously. “ _Twelve_.”

“Twelve? Twelve _wh_ —oh, you have _got_ to be _kidding_ me...!”

Bow appeared to give this some thought. “I mean, I prefer my Glimmer at a simmer, but—”

Glimmer _felt_ her face turn red. “ _Bow!_ ”

“Oh, does that mean something?” Adora asked, wiggling her eyebrows at him suggestively. “A bedroom something? You guys making stir fry up there? _Nice._ ”

However, to Glimmer's immense relief, Bow just winked. “All I can say is that Glimmer's never tried to fight me in any seriousness, so Catra might be right.”

Despite herself, Glimmer had a nagging desire to know what 'making a stir-fry' could _possibly_ mean in this context. Adora's approach to metaphor could be much like her approach to everything else, which is to say, best typified as a form of wildly punching.

“It's true,” Adora continued, pointedly ignoring Catra sputtering irritably overhead. “Clearly left an impression. The way the light of her magic plays off her bloodthirsty eyes, or something like that.”  
  
“If you two keep on like this, you'll find out for yourselves!” Glimmer roared, clenched fists at her sides. “What has gotten into you?”

“Well that's just adorable,” Adora said, putting her face in her hands in a pantomime of looking at something sickeningly sweet.

Bow nodded. “They both are.”

“I am _NOT CUTE_!” Catra bellowed for the ten thousandth time.

“Awww...”  
  
“Rrrrrrghhh!”

“Well, it looks like you two are going to have a fun week,” Adora observed as if nothing in particular was happening. “If you get bored just threaten to kill one another. It clearly brings something out in both of you.”

Glimmer was taken aback. “Wh-what? What are you talking ab—”

Adora winked, poorly, then looked up at Catra. “Bye, kittycat.”

“ _Crash and die in a fire_.”

“Love you too!”

Bow blew Glimmer a theatrical kiss and, with no further ado, set the skimmer's engines howling and took off towards the Whispering Woods and, further beyond, Sileneas.

Glimmer watched it go, unsettled. Maybe it was the sound, combined with the shape—

Yeah, no, she couldn't lie to herself.

Were Bow and Adora just teasing them, or did she seriously mean to suggest...?

No. No, right? This was Adora we were talking about. Bow was probably explaining to her right now what she'd implied.

She glanced up at Catra, who was staring daggers at the disappearing shape of the skimmer.

“Uh...so what was _that_ all about—”

Catra's fierce glare snapped to meet her. Glimmer had to resist the urge to wince.  
  
“I am _not._ _Cute_ ,” she declared, pointing...pointedly.

“Didn't say you were,” Glimmer said, flatly.

Catra considered this.

“Well...good.”

“Good.”

“Good!”

They stared at each other for a moment.

“So, do you want to get some dinner, or—”

“I AM NOT CUTE!” Catra bellowed again, and vanished into the castle.

Glimmer pinched the bridge of her nose. Why were all her friends idiots?

“No kidding!” she shouted at the empty window.

Too late, she realized the guards who had helped them load the skimmer were still standing watch by the doors to the castle. They had an air of very detached, professionalism and temporary deafness.

“Did my mother have to deal with nonsense like this!?” Glimmer growled.

The guards glanced at each other warily.

“Well—”

Glimmer's hands raised so fast it was like they moved of their own volition, waving in front of her face desperately. “No, no, never mind. I don't want to know.”

“Yes, your highness. Least said, soonest mended, your highness.”

+

The next few days dragged by.

Without Bow and Adora to hang out with, and her father away in Mystacor with her aunt, all that was left for the queen was work. Reports to read, requests for aid to feel guilty about, petitions to ignore, and more party invitations than she could accept in a lifetime. Once the royal pile of paperwork had been cut down a bit, there was only wandering the castle and retiring to her library to read.

Even during the worst time in the war, right after her coronation, Bow and Adora's absence had been somewhat assuaged by the presence of the other Princesses...and, as guilty as she still felt about it, the tutelage and praise of Shadow Weaver. This was more like that long-ago, lonely time when her father had been presumed dead and Bow had not yet appeared on the castle lawn, eager to make a new friend. There was just a small, lonely heart and the light of the Moonstone.

No, that wasn't right.

There was a much more recent loneliness that was much more true to this, wasn't there...?

That's why the last few days were so hollowing, perhaps. The absence of anyone but stony-faced guards, and the lingering not-quite-presence of Catra.

Glimmer had caught brief glimpses of her, now and then, and felt proud of herself. With the help of Melog it was a wonder anyone ever saw her, and Catra had quickly gained a reputation for being impossible to track down when Adora was gone even for a short time. Nobody knew what she was doing, either, besides stealing food and occasionally taking books out of the library and, when finished, leaving them in small piles wherever she'd been sitting for someone else to replace later.

When they did meet, as in properly see one another—for example, in the morning on the second day since Bow and Adora left, and Catra was staring out at nothing from one of the vaulted arches in the gallery—there was...

Or rather, there _wasn't_.

Oh, those idiots.

It wasn't like Glimmer and Catra were the most super of super best friends—not yet, and maybe never. There was a lot of hurt there. A lot of what Perfuma would undoubtedly vaguely call negative energy and then try to solve with guided meditation and very strong-flavored tea.

So, where there could have been some light bickering and teasing there was...well...

“Hey, Catra.”  
  
Glance. Nod. “Hey, Sparkles.”

“So...have you...read anything good lately?”

She felt like an idiot. An idiot with mouth no good word make disease.

Catra didn't seem to notice, or care. “Mmm.”  
  
Glimmer had chuckled weakly. “Yeah, me...me either.”

And that was about it, although there had been some polite niceties that neither of them really paid much attention to. Although Catra being casually polite was in and of itself somewhat disturbing.

There was something unsettling about the way Catra was just...around. Watching.

Oh, to be a prisoner again! At least then they had their impending deaths to connect over, not Bow and Adora being—being—

 _Confusing_.

Anger was no stranger to Glimmer's heart, and sullen embers had awoken. She stomped off to her room and angrily grabbed the half-broken old communication pad Bow kept leaving on her desk before teleporting up to her bed and sitting on the edge, letting her feet dangle.

“Adora? Bow? One of you, pick up!”

The screen fuzzed into life and, after some distortion, displayed the smiling and slightly dirty face of She-Ra.

“Oh, hi, Glimmer! How's things?”  
  
Glimmer recoiled. “She-Ra...!”  
  
“Oh, hahaha, yeah. Don't...don't worry about it,” said the glorious, golden goddess. “Just one of those, haha, natural adventures we were talking about—”

Somewhere offscreen, Bow called out to her in alarm. She-Ra glanced away and frowned.

“Just a sec,” she said, setting the pad on the ground. A lot of violent sounds and flashing lights filled Glimmer's room for some time, then She-Ra appeared again, looking as serene as ever despite glancing around cautiously.

Glimmer peered at the screen. “Is that...First Ones tech? Did you two find a ruin?”

“Hmm? What? No, no. We didn't know about this ruin before we left and definitely didn't plan to stop along the way,” She-Ra continued in a distracted tone of voice, watching something offscreen.

“You _what!?_ ”  
  
“Cat's out of the bag at this point, no sense lying about it,” She-Ra griped. “And the spiders. Lots of spiders. Always spiders with these people. What's that about, am I right?”

She laughed airily, as if this was an amusing little joke over tea.

“What is _wrong_ with you two?”

“Well, we knew you'd say no, so. You know.”

“So you just _did it anyways_?”

“We didn't think there would be spiders!”  
  
“YOU JUST SAID THERE ARE ALWAYS SPIDERS, ADORA!”

She-Ra sighed and shrugged. “I mean, there might not have been. Then everything would have been fine and we'd already be back on our way to Salenias. Look, more importantly,” she said, putting on a very suggestive smile, “how're things with Catra?”

In the background, Bow was thrown head-over-heels, yelping, pursued by a horde of massive spider constructs. She-Ra groaned and raised a finger.

Glimmer sighed and rolled her eyes as the pad flashed and crashed and smashed.

“Okay. I think we're good again, sorry,” She-Ra said casually.

“Oh, we are _not_ good. We are nowhere _near_ good,” Glimmer growled. “But we can talk about that when you get back and I can blow your head off personally. For right now...what the heck, Adora, what _was_ that the other day?”

“What, the teasing?”

“Yes, the _extremely embarrassing_ public spectacle where you pretty heavily suggested that I—that we—that she—”

Glimmer's voice caught in her throat, and she felt her cheeks flushing again. It was infuriating.

“That the two of you screw around,” She-Ra said, blinking in incomprehension.

“Y-yeah!” Glimmer managed.

She-Ra scratched behind her ear with the pommel of the Sword. “I mean, it's okay with me, obviously. I thought you Brightmoon folks weren't too shy about this kind of thing. How many husbands and wives does your brother have, Bow? No, no, you know the one I mean. Six? _Nine!?_ Oh, wow, really...? Seems like a hassle to me. But whatever makes them happy, I guess.”

Glimmer grabbed her head. She could feel a migraine coming on. “No, no, that's not what I meant—”

“Oh. OH!” She-Ra exclaimed, looking startled, then apologetic. “Okay, did I misunderstand something? Like, do I—with Bow? Like, swapsies?”

To emphasize her point, she wiggled her forefinger and middle finger back and forth several times.

“ _No!_ ”

“Oh, thank heavens.”  
  
“Wait, what? What's wrong with Bow?”

“Nothing's wrong with Bow, I'm just glad I didn't have a cultural misunderstanding!” She-Ra objected. “In the Horde they didn't teach us anything about anything! When were kids we had to compare our bodies in the shower to figure out how any of it worked, and let me tell you, compared to Rogelio, we are all _super_ boring—”

“Agh! No wonder you two are the way you are,” Glimmer groaned.

She-Ra raised a suspicious eyebrow. “What, traumatized ex-child soldiers?”

Glimmer waved a hand dismissively. “We're...we're getting off-track,” she managed. “Like, Adora, why would you think that...that we...”  
  
“Well, you're always arguing with her,” She-Ra said, as if it were totally obvious.

“And what, is that like, flirting for her?”  
  
“No, no, of course not. Well, I say that, but...” She-Ra amended herself, looking away nervously for a moment. “No, no, not the way you two do it. It's more like there's this...tension. A lot of bad blood, but there's also some stuff you two went through together that's got you bonded, and...you know...that tension and frustration could be channeled...”

“No, Adora, I don't know.”

She-Ra had the courtesy to look shy for a moment. “I...look, maybe I misread the situation a little.”  
  
“Oh, you think?”  
  
“It worked for me!” She-Ra exclaimed. “I don't know! Man, I'm terrible at feelings stuff. You're putting me on the spot. It's not like I'm telling you to punch her. Although that _has_ helped in the past.”

“For what it's worth, I think you should consider it!” Bow shouted in the background. “Both of you need to work on processing your frustration in a healthy way! AND WE HAVE BOTH ADMITTED THAT SHE IS VERY ATTRACTIVE WHEN SHE'S NOT, YOU KNOW, TRYING TO KILL EVERYONE—”

She-Ra turned to give him a thumbs-up and immediately winced. A lot of loud, complicated sounds were happening in the background.

“Oh, okay, so...I need to go deal with this,” she said, in a pacifying sort of tone of voice. “But, look, I'm sorry, Glimmer, for maybe pushing you in a weird direction. You obviously don't have to do anything you don't want to.”

Glimmer felt—

Well, the two of them were going to feel the back of her hand when they got back and there was no getting out of that.  
  
But they meant well.

Not that she wasn't still a roiling ball of embarrassment and irritation deep down in the pit of her guts, but that was—that was just how she was.

She rubbed her face a few times, taking time to rub her eyes to soothe the impending stress headache. This was way too tiring.

“Look, I know you were just trying to be...accommodating, but this was a bit much.”

“Well, that, and we thought if you were busy messing around with Catra you'd be in a good enough mood to forgive us for the detour—”

Glimmer's eyes slammed open. The stress headache had arrived.

“When you get back to Brightmoon I am going to throw both of you into space with magic I am fairly sure I can do that at this point okay goodbye you unbelievable morons,” she said, in a very terse and even way, almost totally devoid of emotions.

“Love you, too!” Bow called from the background. Something large and mechanical roared over him.

Glimmer clicked off the pad and threw herself back on the bed, and tried not to think too hard about anything.

Catra was...horrible. She'd been horrible for a long time, done so much...evil.

It was easy for Adora to forgive her, to love her—they, more than anyone Glimmer had ever known, even more than her own parents, really felt like the two halves that somehow combined not into one, but two wholes. There was a deep love there, a love growing out of a field of pain, and loss, and sorrow, and enduring such grief that sometimes just thinking about it made Glimmer nervous.

But she—

Was she really so bitter and cruel that she couldn't see how Catra's life had been shaped by the horrors she'd been subjected to? Hadn't she seen enough of how Shadow Weaver manipulated you, twisted your perspective around to hers and then hollowed you out for her convenience...?

All that, and she'd still done that one good thing with her life. _Wanted_ to do it.

Some of it for Adora, but...in that last look before the teleport, their eyes had met, and Glimmer had seen nothing but pain and remorse, directed right at Glimmer. She might still hold Catra accountable for a lot, but she believed, deep down, that Catra was really and truly sor—

A pounding on her doors startled her out of her heart's blossoming feelings of affection and camaraderie.

“What is it?!” she shouted, then remembered she was the Queen. “I mean...yes, what is it, please enter. Et cetera.”  
  
A pair of guards entered flanking one of the castle stewards, who was rubbing his hands together nervously.

“Erm...my lady,” he began, tremulously. “I...I regret to inform you that... _some_ one...has entered the gardens adjacent to the guest quarters formerly occupied by Shadow Weaver and...and...”

There it was—the stress headache. And with it, the _overwhelming frustration._

And so the little flower of affection and camaraderie went up in flame. Adieu.

“And. _What_?”  
  
“They've clipped every blossom amongst her gardening and arranged a message—”

Before she even knew what she was doing, Glimmer was atop a convenient spire. Cold evening winds swirled around her, and she shivered—although not all from the cold.

“Oh, that little _bit—_ ”

And with a wink, she was gone, leaving nothing but the open sky to read:

**HEY SPARKLES <3**

+

Not in Adora's room. Not in Bow's room.

Not in the kitchen—although she had been. Melog was there, _maoo_ ing curiously as they, for some reason, rubbed their face on some carrots.

Not in the library. Nor the atrium. Nor the Lunarium.

Not in the Halls.

Not at the Moonstone Pinnacle...

Perhaps she knew all along, and her subconscious was creating a buffer between the white-hot fury and the moment she'd see that smug, self-satisfied grin and totally lose it.

Glimmer _kicked_ the door to the prison open. It was, as always, airy and open to a lovely vista beyond. She stepped inside and—

There were candles lit. _Lots_ of them, dozens, piled everywhere and anywhere—some in candelabras, others stacked on tables, honestly just placed haphazardly wherever they'd fit. They filled the room with a low, ambient light and a chaotic haze of different heavily perfumed smells. Glimmer's nose felt like it wanted to instantly plug shut.

Worse were the petals under her feet—black and blue roses, all of Shadow Weaver's most prized cultivar flowers, snipped and scatted about in a long path leading to—

The bed.

And on it, sprawled lazily and wearing nothing but an unzipped jacket and a pair of outrageously lacy white panties, was Catra—sniffing the last of the black roses lazily.

Her smile grew more sly and cruel with each step Glimmer took.

“Hello,” she purred, as Glimmer reached the foot of the bed. She swished her tail seductively. “Welcome to the sex.”

Glimmer took a deep, calming breath.

It very much did not work and was immediately turned into a howl of queenly wrath.

“HOW CAN ONE PERSON BE THIS _UNBELIEVABLY_ INFURIATING!?”

“Years of practice.”

“Oh, _ha ha_. Super clever.”

Catra sniffed the rose again. “You look lovely tonight.”

“What is _wrong_ with you?!” Glimmer roared. “Do you have any idea how valuable those flowers are? How long it will take them to regrow? Do you even _care_?”

“People really need to stop asking me that question,” Catra said, coolly. She tossed the rose aside, knowing very well that the movement oh-so-briefly revealed a hint of what the jacket managed to barely conceal. “They're never happy with the answer.”  
  
“Rrrrrrgghhhhhhhh....!”

“Oh, come on, play along, Sparkles!” Catra laughed, high and cold and bitterly. “Wasn't this the plan? They run off and leave us to get all lovey-dovey for awhile? I don't know about you, but I could stand a good roll in the...well, the rose petals. The horse always gets mad when Adora and I _actually_ roll in the hay.”

Unbelievable.

“I cannot _believe_ I was about to waste time _sympathizing_ with you and thinking through your _issues_ ,” Glimmer spat. “There's just something... _spiteful_ and _angry_ in you, isn't there? Always there, ready to _piss me off_! _Still_!”

Catra's eyes got cold and angry for a moment—just a moment. “I don't try to hide it.”  
  
“Well you _should_!”

“Oh, but Adora keeps telling me I need to be open with my feelings—”

“ _That's not an excuse to keep having temper tantrums any time you get annoyed_!”

“Temper tantrum!” Catra yowled, clearly gravely offended. “Oh, Sparkles, believe me, if I was having a temper tantrum at you, you'd _know_ it.”  
  
“I know! That's how I know this is one! For years we were dealing with you having one big, long, weepy temper tantrum and now anytime you get mad at Adora, you run off and sulk and then make a huge scene so that she'll pay attention to you!” Glimmer shrieked. A thought occurred to her and she interrupted Catra's furious retort with a bitter laugh. “Ah, maybe that's why I'm so mad, this _isn't even about me_! This is about _Adora_ embarrassing you and making you worry that we think you're _weak_.”

Catra's face had lost all semblance of ironic seductiveness. Glimmer hadn't seen this level of icy fury in her face in _forever—_ this was Catra in full on, near-berserk fury.

“I. Am not _—”_

“ _Cute?_ ” Glimmer snapped, grinning horribly.

It was easy, sometimes, to forget how dangerous Catra could be, especially when you'd spent a lot of time recently watching her lounging happily in Adora's lap. Here, in the low light of the candles, her eyes wild with outrage and lips curled into a furious sneer, she once again looked like the demon she'd so often been. As she rose to crouch menacingly on the edge of the bed, she was trembled with rage and humiliation, fur bristling.

“Watch it,” she snarled.

“Awww, kitty's angwy.”

One of Catra's eyelids twitched.

Glimmer smirked. “Come on! You _wanted_ killer queen, right? Well, come and get it!”  
  
Catra smiled ferociously, breaths heaving. “Oh, I am being _so_ good right now. You have _no_ idea—”

“Oh, don't bother on my account. It's pretty fun watching you squirm.”

The vicious hiss came from deep in Catra's throat, somewhere animal and primal. If Glimmer hadn't been riding high on white-hot, bitter anger herself, she'd have been chilled to her core; but instead, she laughed, loud and mockingly.

“ _Adora_ ble,” she said, voice dripping with condescension.

“That's _it_!” Catra shrieked, eyes wild.  
  
The pounce was unsteady and off-balance, which is probably the only thing that saved Glimmer even though she was waiting for it. She blinked to the side—just far enough for her to give Catra's infuriated, confused expression a smug smile as the woman flew awkwardly across the room and landed hard against a table. Piles of candles tumbled to the floor around her.

“Try again,” Glimmer said, coldly, as Catra struggled to scramble to her feet.

Catra roared with anger and, to Glimmer's shock, tossed the jacket directly into the queen's face. As Glimmer struggled to toss it out of the way, Catra was right behind it, claws flashing. Only a desperate teleport spared her another taste.

“You know, the last time we did this, you had an army of robots and soldiers. And, you know, armor,” Glimmer mocked. “Now it's just you and me and a pair of my auntie's panties.”

Catra's ears pricked up in alarm, and she looked down in horror at the underwear. “ _What_ did you just _—_ “

“You _have_ to stop just stealing things just you find laying around,” Glimmer said. “That, and pay attention to what my hands are doing.”

Catra, halfway through ripping the panties off, looked down in terror as the magic circle appeared beneath her feet. Glimmer twisted her hand with a cruel grin and laughed as Catra was tossed, naked and totally without dignity, up in the air and back down onto the bed. She landed with a heavy grunt that suggested she'd had the wind knocked out of her, and as Glimmer approached the bed again she scrambled to get back to her feet, spitting rose petals out of her mouth and struggling to kick her legs free of the now-shredded lacy underwear.

“Bow's right, it's all about keeping you upset...”  
  
“You know, Adora made me promise that if you and I got in a fight, I wouldn't do anything _permanent_ ,” Catra growled. “I'm beginning to wonder exactly how much I can get away with.”

“She always forgets that it wasn't _her_ who beat you, in the end,” Glimmer replied flatly.

“It wasn't _you_ , either. It was Hordak. And Double Trouble.”

“Yeah, _Double Trouble_. Who were they working for again? Oh, and during that last battle, I fought like, six more powerful clones of Hordak while you were making out with Adora at the Heart, so. You know.”

This rather heartless reminder had the intended effect.

Catra's final attack was, again, awkward. For one thing, she was totally naked, but that just added to the animalistic savagery of the pounce, accentuated by her roar of fury. The bed slid underneath her as she leapt off it, making her stumble, just a bit—

There was no magic this time. No dodging, no tricks, no cheating. Glimmer wouldn't know the term, but in the moment she _felt_ the need for a show of force.

All she had to do was let Catra's lunge slide across her body as she turned, just enough, and stuck a leg out—

Catra slammed face first, hard, into the wall behind Glimmer. Immediately Glimmer was behind her, pinning an arm to Catra's back and the other slamming into the wall next to Catra's face, humming with magical force.

“Whose. Castle. Is. This?”

Breathing hard, Catra glared over her shoulder.

“ _Whose_?”

They held the angry stare for a moment.

Finally:

“Yours.”

“Correct,” Glimmer said, viciously. “You wanted the Queen? Well here she is. You have my _full_ attention. So I am going to ask, just one time: is there _something_ can I do for you? Or am I going to have to beat some more sense into you?”

Oh, _that_ felt really good.

The stare lasted longer this time. A lot of subtle changes happened to the atmosphere, not least of which was Glimmer becoming very, _very_ aware that Catra was totally naked.

Somehow, silently, they came to a mutual understanding.

“The idiots were right,” Glimmer growled. “It's either this, or I'm going to rip your head off.”

Pause.

“I am still. _..so_ angry,” Catra said, between her teeth.

“Not a problem for me.”

“I just hope you're not particularly attached to that outfit.”

Glimmer gave it some thought.

Eh, she was due for a wardrobe change anyways...

She let go.

The kiss—the first, the third, the _tenth—_ was harsh, and powerful. _Angry_ , definitely, kisses that existed as a prelude to a fight. They burned like strong, woody liquor—burned on Glimmer's lips, across her skin, in her mind...

Possibly the last clear thought Glimmer had for the foreseeable future was to wave her hand and put out all the candles before the room _literally_ burned; after that, there was just the raw and furious attention she was getting from Catra. She was warm—of course she was warm, she was covered in fur—but she ran hot, too, and in the chilly evening air being pushed down, _held_ down, and _bitten_ felt so good, and weirdly comforting.

Fire was the right image. Catra _burned_ and so did Glimmer. Fury and desperate want consuming all the frustration and resentment and anger, consuming thought and breath and inhibition...

And she was beautiful in her anger. Now that it was being directed properly, Glimmer could appreciate Catra's gleeful delight in indulging her impulsive fury; the low light accentuated the subtle curves of her lithe body, gleamed off her claws as she _ripped_ Glimmer free from her clothes and lit a naked, hungry light in her wild eyes.

It all happened so fast, it was so _liberating—_

Before she knew it, she was nude, nipping at Catra's pert breasts, _trying_ to make it hurt. It was the equivalent of a punch, emotionally. She wanted to make sure Catra _felt_ it, that it was burned into her body, that the pleasure she felt was accompanied by a frustrating amount of pain. Catra grunted appreciatively with each little bite, hissing between her teeth, crushing Glimmer's face to her chest.

The _smell_ of her, the feeling of her fine fur, the firmness of her grasp...

It wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough, she wanted—she _needed_ to—

“Come on, Sparkles,” Catra purred maliciously, “I thought you and Bow had gotten past hand-holding. Do you need an instruction manual?”

Bow.

It wasn't that they'd never had _rough_ sex. Bow was a fairly athletic guy after all, and, following some very direct conversations, had been talked around to tossing her around a bit from time to time. Once in awhile it felt good to be _wanted_ , that badly, that _harshly—_ and once he'd gotten it through his head that Glimmer wasn't made of glass, she'd become quite appreciative of exactly how strong shooting arrows that much can make you.

But sex with him, even rough sex, was like laying on your back on the beach, and letting the water flow over you—desire, or affection, or just pure radiating love, as only Bow could really manage.

Catra was not like that. Not right now, anyway. Catra...

Fire. Catra was _fire._

Calling you. Beckoning you. _Luring_ you. Not needing or wanting, just...drawing you in, swallowing you. Consuming you.

And oh, warm so you don't notice it eating away.

But she was not queen of this castle.

Glimmer opened her eyes. Her heart was thundering, breaths coming in heaves and starts. She was propped up in Catra's lap, moaning and whining as one of Catra's hands massaged a breast, teasing the skin with its claws, while the other...  
  
Oh, my, was she good at that. Wow.

She wasn't even putting her fingers _in_ , just massaging above and around Glimmer's sodden vulva, pressing gently but firmly to stimulate the sensitive, twitching muscles. Glimmer felt her body responding eagerly to the attention; just the feeling of Catra running her fingers through Glimmer's public hair sent electric tickles up her spine.

“You talk a good talk, I'll give you that,” Catra said, snickering. “But you're just like Adora. Once I have you in my hands, you just can't _help_ yourselves but lie back and _beg_...”

Catra's mocking smirk...well, mocked her.

But it felt _so_ _good—_

“Oooh, got a little excited there, when I brought her up. Maybe you're more jealous of her than you realized,” Catra teased.

“Just...shut up...”

“Sorry, your Sparkliness. I don't take orders in bed. Not from _you_.”

The hand curled with mocking gentleness around Glimmer's breast closed, just slightly—enough that the gentle pinpricks of Catra's claws became that much more threatening.

Oh, _so_ threatening—Glimmer almost _asked_ for more, couldn't help but wonder what that _burn_ of their bite would feel like when she was this lost in sex...

Then her thoughts went fuzzy, as a finger teased across her clitoris—followed shortly by a sharp pain somewhere else.

“Ah!”  
  
“Ah, ah, ah—no touching...you're _mine_ now.”

Glimmer tried to shake her head—it had been _her_ hand that had leapt to her needy, desperate sex. Catra had slapped her hand away, hard, claws out—there was blood, she could feel it...

Catra's clever hand danced across her pubis, down, down towards that ache, that _need._ Glimmer's head began to swim. The feeling of Catra's fingers teasing her lips, swollen with the attention to her mound, fogged her mind.

“ _Say it.”_

“Wha—?”

“Say _please.”_

Cruelty and malicious delight danced on every syllable.  
  
The pain in her hand helped Glimmer focus.

“Mmm. No, won't—ah!”

“Come on,” Catra purred. “All you have to do is ask. And then I'll give you what you need.”

Catra ran the very tips of her claws down Glimmer's belly, humming happily as Glimmer shivered and whined.

“And then we'll both know that you _asked_ for it, in the end, from now on,” Catra continued. “Won't that be fun?”

It would be so...easy. And it would be so _good_...

“N-no!”  
  
“No?”  
  
_won't do it won't_ beg _not for_ HER

Glimmer shook the haze from her head. It was hard—she _wanted_ it. Bad.

She wanted something _else_ more.

“No.”

With a grunt of effort she slipped free of Catra's grip. A burn on her side suggested she'd be walking away with more proof of what she was up to.  
  
Catra yelped, a bit thrown off-balance by Glimmer's sudden struggle, and Glimmer took advantage to push her over onto her back, splaying her out. A thoughtless blink had Glimmer straddling one of Catra's legs at the thigh, pinning it down, and her left hand holding Catra's left shoulder.

Once the shock of the change wore off, Catra looked up at her in vicious delight. “Oh, look at you...”

“That's not what we're doing tonight,” Glimmer said, between heavy sighs.

“You sure?” Catra said, smugly. She tensed the thigh Glimmer was holding down, making the muscle underneath Glimmer's sensitive, aching, _sodden_ vulva shift just enough to be...

_really good please more I need it want it_

Glimmer just let the moan come and go, ignoring Catra's cruel little grin. It shivered up and down her spine.

But no. No, that's _not_ what she wanted. Not really.

“I want to show you a magic trick,” she managed, breathing hard.

“Oh yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Not breaking eye contact, Glimmer let the fingertips of her free hand run down the inside of Catra's right leg. She was mildly surprised when Catra didn't do anything to resist.

But then, there was a _look_ in her eye. A weird one. Something like a question.

Killer queen. Killer queen...

“You'll want to keep your mouth shut.”  
  
Catra barked a laugh. “Short of gagging me, there's not much you can do to make me shut up. And that is a whole different level of—”

“No, really, keep your mouth _shut_ ,” Glimmer said through a malicious grin of her own, raising her right hand and wiggling the fingers. “The first time I did this to myself, I nearly bit through my tongue.”  
  
“Wait. What are you—”

The energy that burst into life around her fingers was more or less her usual neon pink, but with a little less _sparkle_ to it. It was just light, basically, and the tiniest, tiniest bit of pressure—couldn't hurt a fly.

But oh, did it _thrum_.

Loudly, and _powerfully_.

She felt herself get a little wetter just remembering it.

And a _lot_ more excited when she saw Catra's face fall into a sudden panic.

“Hold on, what's—”

Catra's own sex was gloriously wet. Glimmer's smirk broadened as her fingers running gently across the lips made Catra whine needfully.

“What's my name?”  
  
_Thrumm_

It wasn't a shriek. There wasn't pain.

Certainly not for Glimmer, happily riding Catra's thigh as she spasmed.

It was just a...sound. A _happy_ sound.

“Oh, you liked that?”  
  
“I—”

 _thrummmmmmm_  
  
Catra's eyes went wide and a little crazed as she tensed, giving a long, strained moan that maybe, _possibly_ , tailed off into a very satisfied-sounding hiss between desperately clenched teeth.

“Yesssssss...”

Glimmer smiled in mock benevolence.

“The name of this magic trick is 'Catra screams my name'. I think you're going to enjoy the rest of the show.”

Catra smiled viciously, eyes wild and hungry.

“Yeah, good luck with thaaaaaaaaaa...”

_thmmmmmmmmmmmm_

Glimmer swore Catra's eyes rolled up in her head for a moment.

Catra poiunded her free hand on the bed wildly, half-grunting, half-laughing as Glimmer gently massaged Catra's beautiful, exposed vulva with her fingertips.

The glow and hum stopped. Catra twitched and shivered, grinning stupidly through an orgasm.

“And that's just with me putting my hand _on_ you,” Glimmer said, between idly licking her fingers. She'd never tasted another woman before; it was thrilling. “I've had some practice with more _specialized_ techniques, whenever you're ready.”

“No—not yet, I'm still—“

_Thmmmmmmm_

“ _Agh! Agh,_ too much, too much—”

“Say my name.”  
  
Catra tried to say no, but it came out in a long, strained, “ _Nnnnnnn_.”  
  
“I'm not even doing anything fancy yet, Catra, come on.”

“I—I—I—”

Glimmer let her middle finger ride up the crest of Catra's labia, to find that special, lovely little nub at the top—

_Thrummmmmm_

Catra _howled_ in delight—at first. Glimmer kept stimulating her, holding the pressure steady and constant, until Catra was writhing underneath her, back arching, breaths coming shallow and unsteady—

“I'm not going to stop until you ask.”

The only reply from Catra was quickening, desperate breaths through her nose, eyes wide with desperation. She couldn't even _speak_ , she was so overwhelmed...

“Or until I feel like it, I guess,” Glimmer said, rolling her eyes theatrically. “Adora would never forgive me if I gave you a heart attack.”  
  
The pressure came off.

Catra coughed out a huge gout of held breath, her powerful core begging to clench and shudder with pleasure—but Glimmer kept her firmly pressed down into the bed. It was hard—Catra was almost as strong as Adora, and much more slippery, but the aftershocks of another intense orgasm made her struggle to summon the muscle power to resist.

Glimmer wasn't cruel. She let Catra get one or two deep, gulping breaths in.

“More?” Glimmer asked, still enjoying the soothing pleasure of gently riding Catra's thigh.

“Just—just give me a moment...” Catra managed, panting.

“Oh. Okay.”  
  
Catra looked up in faint disbelief.

“Reall—aaaaaaaghh!!”

_Thrummmmmmm_

“No, not really. You're not in charge.”  
  
Catra's hands gripped the bedspread desperately, and she clenched her teeth, moaning desperately as Glimmer gently circled the entrance to Catra's vagina with a vibrating hand. It was _so_ tempting to just _push_ , indulge in her want and curiosity, but—

No, no. She needed to be _polite_ and let Catra _ask_ for it. She was a _queen_.

“So?”

Catra's eyes were _beautiful._

Glimmer couldn't _not_ stare into them. There's something about a mind totally fogged over with pleasure that just brings out the desperate, focused want that makes a woman feel special.

“You'll...you'll have to...do...” Catra managed, pausing to gasp as Glimmer pulled her hand away for a moment's relief. She shook it out; this magic had a way of putting her hand to sleep if she did it for too long, and that just felt weird.

“Sorry. You were saying?”  
  
“I've had... _worse..._ ”  
  
Not the most polite petition Queen Glimmer had ever replied to, but it was one of the more honest.

Her ring and middle fingers _slid_ into Catra, like dipping into a cup of warm water. From her own experience Glimmer could only imagine how much _need_ she was fulfilling. _  
  
_Catra sighed, almost peacefully, finally being touched, filled, _spread._..  
  
Glimmer leaned over her.

“Say my name,” she whispered.

Their eyes met.

They both smiled, in the satisfied but competitive manner of blood enemies who are now, at last, reaching that final moment of their lengthy confrontation.

“ _No_ ,” Catra moaned.

If it weren't for her vicious grin one might have mistaken it for a plea.

_THRUUMMMMMMMMMMM_

“I told you there were a few tricks left.”

“Ahhhhh! Ah ah ah ah ah..!” Catra gasped, throwing her head back, limbs tensing. She was trying to speak, but all that came out were the nonsense half-syllables of a brain slowly dissolving on Glimmer's hand.

Glimmer stared down at her.

Catra. This was _Catra_! Begging, whining, _pleading_ , all for her...

...at her mercy.

_In Shadow Weaver's bed!_

The thought alone sent a shiver of delight up her spine.  
  
The followup thought made it better: _she_ wants _this. She wants_ MORE _of this._

Glimmer's thumb was already sneaking its way up Catra's lips, towards her clitoris—

“Please,” Catra gasped.  
  
“Please what?”  
  
“I want it...I want to...for you...”

Glimmer shifted herself forward, lowering herself so that she was hovering slightly above Catra's panting, whiny face. Sweat dropped from her forehead onto Catra's.

The magic stopped. Glimmer's thumb froze.

“Whose castle is this?”

“Y-yours!” Catra hissed. “Yours. Yours.”

“Who's the queen?”

“Y-you...”  
  
“Nope. Wrong answer.”

Catra whined as Glimmer forced her thumb away. Her hand leapt to Glimmer's back, pulling her down until at last she was breathing into Glimmer's ear. Their breasts met, nipples occasionally sliding past one another as they breathed, and Glimmer was obliged to shift forward even more. Her vulva spread against the back of her hand, slick lips splaying wantonly...

For a long time, Catra just breathed.

Then, barely louder than that:  
  
“Queen Glimmer.”  
  
Glimmer smiled. It wasn't a scream. Somehow, it was _better_.

“And don't you forget it.”  
  
_THRUMMMMM_

She'd forgotten how much this much power just... _spread_ through her. It seemed to shake in her _bones,_ never mind the heavenly vibration in her core. The feeling spread across her lips and flowed to the top of her sex, grounded itself in her clitoris, and turned into a lightning blot that ran up her spine and melted her brain, sending aftershocks along her whole body.

Catra's hand, on her back, went rigid and then clenched. The feeling of her claws digging thin lines barely registered in Glimmer's head beyond the distant, lovely sensation of _power_ , of having overwhlemed Catra, _dominated_ her until that was all she could do to resist, all she could do to show how intense what Glimmer had done to her was...

She grunted, smiled, and felt the orgasm hit her.

Beneath her, she vaguely registered Catra moaning in delight, crying out for it to never stop...

Her last thoughts were, _oh, this_ never _happens to me anymore..._

And then there was the sensation of shifting, and the feel of cool air and soft bedsheets.

+

These were the wrong sheets.

How that registered to Glimmer before the fact that she _had woken up_ was a bit unclear, but passing out from overusing magic was like that.

Her body rebelled against sitting up, but she was the queen and she expected to be obeyed, not fussed at.

She was in her room, somehow. Tucked in neatly, and—well, still naked and messy. So someone had half-taken care of her.

The part of her that was the queen wanted to scream and start wondering how she was going to deal with the mess in the guest quarters, but she ignored that as a problem for tomorrow-Glimmer, who would have had a good night's rest with a brain saturated in orgasm chemicals and would probably be in a better mood.

_Mrrraoo?_

Glimmer turned, and was surprised to see—

“Melog?”

The magic cat had apparently been curled up next to her head, and gazed at her curiously. Well, that explained how she got from one side of the castle to the other, fully nude and unconscious, without a huge uproar.

But of course, that meant—

“Gave me a bit of a scare there, Sparkles.”

Glimmer rolled towards the voice and looked down. Catra, wearing one of Adora's shirts and some shorts, was sitting on the bottommost of the “stairs” up to Glimmer's bed, staring out the window, face...

...troubled.

Somehow Glimmer understood that what Catra wanted right now was not to be looked at. She rolled onto her back, much to her body's satisfaction, and didn't look at Catra, presumably to Catra's satisfaction.

“Just ran out of magic. It happens.”

“Thought you didn't run out anymore.”  
  
“Well...I don't know. I was pretty wound up.”

Pause.

“Are you going to be okay? Do I need to carry you to the Moonstone?”  
  
“Just need some rest.”

“Good. Not sure I have it in me.”  
  
She didn't leave. Melog laid back down.

For a long time, Glimmer just stared up at the ceiling.

“Are _you_ okay?” she asked, unable to stop herself.

There was a busy silence. Melog murmured in their sleep.

“I don't want to have a big emotional talk with you.”

“Well, you never do.”  
  
“Mmhmmm.”

“But are you okay?”

Another long, busy silence.

“Just...thinking about things.”

“Okay.”  
  
And that was that, for some time. Glimmer let her have her peace.

“I'm...sorry.:

The quiet statement shattered the silence quite abruptly. Glimmer's eyes widened. That was...quite something, there.

“For...?”  
  
“A lot.”

“Well...thank you.” Glimmer let a moment pass, then added: “For what it's worth, I'm sorry, too.”  
  
“You don't have anything to be sorry for.”  
  
“No, no, I—agh,” Glimmer groaned. “Look, I know you don't want to have a whole _thing_ , but...can I just talk at you? You don't have to say anything.”

She took the silence as permission.

Oh, where to start...

“I'm not proud of how angry I got at you,” she began. “I'm serious, I really was laying there thinking about how hard your life has been when they came to get me about the garden...”

_Mraaaooo..._

Glimmer glanced at Melog, who just stared back in an unhelpfully feline sort of way. They seemed passive and calm, but only Adora was really any good at telling what Catra was thinking just based on Melog's behavior.

Glimmer sighed. “I get that you're hurt. _So_ hurt. And, you know what, maybe you'll never trust anyone except Adora enough to not need to be 'claws-out' all the time. Fine. Whatever. You're _working_ on it,” Glimmer said, thrusting frustrated hands in the air. “But you need to remember that you're not the only person who all that stuff happened to. A lot of my life? The scariest and hardest things I've gone through? They were _you_ happening to me.”

Melog just stared, but despite the continuing silence Glimmer could tell this had not been a popular thing to say.

Was still true, though.

“I see you, Catra. I see you in a way that so many other people don't. I'm not Adora; I don't find you freaking out or behaving like a maniac _charming_ or easy to forgive. It reminds me of all the times I saw you leaping at me with your claws out, laughing about how much fun it was going to be to fight us. It reminds me of you handing me over to be tortured, or standing over Adora, smiling because you'd made her _hurt._ Because this stuff, tonight? It was you losing your temper. And when you lose your temper, _bad things happen to me._ But at the same time...it wasn't anything serious. You were just fooling around, you didn't mean to hurt anyone or do anything. I was just—I overreacted. I'm not proud of it. I'm sorry. _”_

And don't those memories bite down, here, in the cold and lonely of the night...?

Melog just stared. And a very, very still nothing from below.

“This would be so much easier if I just hated you, you know,” Glimmer continued, laughing bitterly. “But you know very well that I don't. I've seen you so broken and defeated that you _asked me to put you out of your misery_. I've heard your voice, so empty and so lonely because we were trapped together, powerless and hopeless. I've seen you fight for Adora, fight for _everyone_. Sacrifice for _me,_ personally. I really believe that you are trying to be a better person. I believe you enjoy being our friend and _want_ to be. I want to believe that someday, we'll be...close. That you'll trust me, and I'll trust you.”

The tail of her statement hung in the air, and she felt silly and childish, wishing that the bad things had never happened and everyone was happy.

“My point is...is...”  
  
She chuckled. Melog cocked their head.  
  
“I don't think you're _cute_ ,” she said, firmly.

 _Now_ Melog sat up, _very_ quizzically. That seemed fairly obvious.

“Not the way you're scared we mean, at least. I mean, you _do_ cute things, we all do, but...” Glimmer trailed off, smiling wistfully. “I have _so_ many feelings, when I think about you. But I promise, not a single one is that you are weak, or vulnerable, or...soft. At all. I mean, come on, if anyone gets it, I do—I was the sparkly princess whose powers didn't work right for, like...ever. It took me ages for anyone to take me seriously. But when it came down to it...I'm the queen for a reason. I won the war. I kept the faith. I'm the queen of Brightmoon.”

 _I'm the queen_ for a reason.

Maybe it had just never clicked to her before how _powerful_ that could feel.

Or maybe she'd just had a very intense sexual encounter about it.

Whatever. Details, details: she was happy, and content.

It was amazing. There was barely a sound, and then there Catra was, sitting on the second-to-last stair, face neutral, _totally casual,_ as if she hadn't just traveled about fifteen feet upwards in half a second.

They stared at each other for a long breath of heartbeats, then:  
  
“You're right,” Catra said, then rolled her eyes and grit her teeth. “About...all of that. It's true. It drives me _insane_ that you're right. About me, about _tonight_ , about...everything. I wish— _all_ the time—that I could, you know...”

_make it all go away I didn't mean it I'm so sorry please forgive me all I want is to be good I promise I'll do better I mean it this time it was a mistake I just got angry_

Glimmer _had_ seen more of Catra than most, hadn't she...

She just tried to be gentle. “Yeah. But we can't.”

Catra sighed deeply and closed her eyes, looking a little ashamed. “Adora tells me, all the time: not overnight.”

“Not overnight,” Glimmer agreed, and reached out her hand.

Catra took it, very gently, and just held it like it was the most precious thing she'd ever seen.

Not overnight, but...piece by piece.

But the maudlin environment quickly ran against Glimmer's mood, so she said: “You know, for an utter moron, she occasionally makes a good point.”  
  
That made Catra laugh, for real.

“But for real, she is _super_ dumb. I mean, you know that she and Bow pissed _me_ off, too, right? If you're upset at her, come talk to me! Let's be mad at her together! She usually deserves it!”

“Like, tonight? This? She does not get credit for this.”  
  
“Oh, no, no, _no_ ,” Glimmer agreed. “In fact, she's in _so_ deep with me right now. Bow too—”

“Because of the ruins?”  
  
Glimmer shot Catra a very sharp look.

Catra grinned. “She can't keep a secret to save her life, you know.”

Glimmer's sharp look became pointed, as well.

“Fine! I spy on her constantly and should have told you! Happy?”

“What a healthy relationship you two have...”

Catra raised her hands defensively, but her grin was _extremely_ sly. “We were _just_ discussing how I am a work in progress. And it helps me make sure she's not going to get herself killed, which I think is very considerate in a girlfriend.”

After a few moments' thought, Glimmer raised an irritated hand to pinch the bridge of her nose again. “Now that I think about it, in this _specific_ case...”  
  
They laughed.

“Anyways,” Catra said, once they'd shared a smug smile. “About that. I have a few thoughts about the two of them...”

+

Adora glanced nervously from Glimmer to Catra, who was once again lounging on a balcony rail overhead.

Glimmer's beatific smile didn't move an inch.

A week had passed, and Salineas had their supplies. Mermista had given the mission an enthusiastic “woo-hoo, great job, you were only three days late and covered in spider gunk”, and had then provided them with a ride home since the skimmer was, to put it mildly, not functional anymore.

“So...we're back!” Adora repeated, grinning unconvincingly.

“I can see that,” Glimmer said, smile not moving. “I'm glad! I was worried about you.”  
  
Adora glanced back over her shoulder at Bow, who shrugged nervously.

“Uh...hey, Catra,” Adora tried, waving halfheartedly. “How you doing?”  
  
“Bit worn out,” Catra said, perfectly pleasantly, although she didn't bother to look down. “Couldn't say why. Glad you're home, though, the horse was getting antsy.”

“Oh _ho_ ,” Adora said, suggestively, glad to have something to leap on. “So! You two, huh? How was that?”  
  
Glimmer's pleasant smile didn't move an inch, although she did cock her head quizzically. Catra gave a loud, theatric yawn.

Adora's lewd grin faded into uncertainty. She turned to Bow, again, who was beginning to sweat nervously.

“I bet you guys are pretty tired after that journey,” Glimmer said, pleasantly. “Why don't you have a shower and some dinner, and we'll catch up then? I'm looking forward to hearing about how Salineas is doing...”  
  
“Oh, uh—”

“Off you go,” Glimmer said, gesturing. “We'll be along in an hour or so.”

Adora and Bow, looking _extremely_ unsettled, walked past her towards the castle. She favored them, and their repeated suspicious glances backwards, with a placid smile and a peaceful little wave. The guards at the castle gate fell in behind them and left Catra and Glimmer alone in the courtyard.

It was _amazing_ how quiet Catra was. A leap and drop of twenty-five feet and she might as well have tiptoed in place next to Glimmer.

“Three days,” Catra repeated. “Three days and they'll be so stressed out they'll do whatever we want.”  
  
“What _do_ we want?” Glimmer mused. “I mean, I really _am_ glad to see them again, but still...”  
  
Catra shrugged. “That's the best part! We have three days to think about it.”  
  
They shared a glance.

They smiled.

They had talked it over at some length together and come to the agreement that they were both good people.

Just not... _that_ good.

“I feel like this is step, oh...twenty, on the long path to a beautiful friendship,” Catra said, smiling smugly.

Glimmer rolled her eyes. She was setting something up, the little drama fiend. “How many steps are there?”

“Eh, I dunno. How long you got? If it's up to me, we'll see how long we can keep this going.”

“ _Very_ cute.”

They shared a smile. Catra gave the queen an extremely over-elaborate bow and a wink.

“Be seeing you, Queen Glimmer,” she said.  
  
And like that, she was off, and away...probably to make out with Adora in the shower.

Glimmer sighed through a smile and looked up at the castle.

 _Her_ castle.

“And don't you forget it.”

**Author's Note:**

> This one is by request of a friend. I personally am not super into Glitra, but I'll be damned if the angry sex isn't there.


End file.
